Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Ahh, the much maligned potato. First people start cutting the humble potato out of their diet due to the carbs, then he’s omitted from the five-a-day veg campaign and now sweet potato is turning up everywhere and getting all the cool party invites. Well, wipe that juicy white tear from your eye señor spud, I have some good news for you! You’re name-dropped in the awesome track, ‘Mashed Skins’ by L.A. based group, Samps. Finally some cred.

Samps is made up of Cole MGN (guitarist in Ariel Pink’s rad Haunted Graffiti), Harley B (aka Doktorberis) and Jason Whitemare. The project was started merely to indulge their passion for sampling and stoopid fun. Jason described their process and sound as “really A.D.D. and unfocused, yet still highly rewarding...sometimes!” But such is the quality of these tracks, demand is growing for them to make this more than just a pet project. Go check out their epileptic beats!Samps - 'Mashed skins'.mp3 (YSI)

Saturday, 18 April 2009

HEALTH. You remember those guys, right? Three kinetically charged LA natives in psychedelic oversize hoodies soundtracking the end of the world while the guy from Magic Numbers holds it down on the skins. Pretty sexy stuff by all accounts. On BFF terms with Crystal Castles and kin of the then burgeoning ‘Smell Scene’ (along with No Age, Abe Vigoda, Mika Miko yadda yadda etc etc) their self titled debut was standard name dropping fare for hipsters and early adopters in the 07/08 season. Sure, the album itself might have been kinda hard work in places but, as anyone lucky enough to catch them in the UK last year will attest, there are few bands capable of competing with their androgynous beat-savvy racket in the live arena.

Anyway. The good news is, dear reader, that HEALTH are back. Back on wax/mp3 via new track Die Slow (currently doing the blog rounds as we speak and purchasable here) and back in our beloved Cottonpolis, courtesy of their appearance at Now Wave (@ The Deaf Institute on Wednesday). Expect the same winning combination of industrial strength beats, robotic vocals and guitars-not-guitars as before, but with newer material incorporating a more rhythmically coherent vibe, somewhere between their sound of old and that heard on their //DISCO remix album.

John from the band told us, "after seeing the psychologies of so many different crowds we are focusing a lot of attention on writing songs and structuring sets to move crowd reaction in a certain way...Our songs are always written with the live setting in mind, but we are now writing songs designed to make the crowd possibly react in a specific way".

"P.S. We are NOT gonna become a dance band". Phew, had me going there for a minute John.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

The Hip Hop are a quartet made up of two members of New Ears favourites Copycats (now on long term hiatus), Nick and Alex, Manchester's answer to Bibio/Banjo Or Freakout - Leveret (seriously good stuff) - and Louis. We were lucky enough to host their debut live show last month, which although unfortunately sans Leveret's drumming, was a stirring synthpop success.

Note to any egyptians out there with an interest in hip hop - get yourself some shows in Rusholme - there was a lot of interest at Saki Bar before the gig enquiring if EHH's name was literal. Saki didn't inform us of any funny looking uncle types asking if our headliners were as described too. I guess it's just not really their scene.

EHH are playing twice in the next week - Saturday and Monday at Fiction Non Fiction. I recommend you go see them before they're bigger than Jehovah.

Extras

DISCLAIMER: Sometimes we love music so much we post it up on our page so our readers can sample it and hopefully go on to buy it. If you object to your music being on the page for whatever reason let us know via email and we'll remove it ASAP: newearsblog@gmail.com